Reviews for Withings Smart Baby Monitor

Don't usually leave reviews. Will keep this short.

Baby is 10 months old, we've had it since the beginning. Worked flawlessly with the app on iPad 2nd gen, iPad 3rd gen, iPad Mini, Iphone 4, Iphone4s and Iphone 5 (i am a bit of a tech junkie). Anyone who leaves a review saying otherwise leaves me puzzled.

Word of caution. My wife isn't the most patient soul and she didn't check the usb plug orientation before jamming it into the device the wrong way. She's not super strong but the damage was irreparable. The USB plug inside the device literally broke right off the circuit board and the Monitor is now useless. So take care when unplugging and plugging in the cable!

We travel with it, and my wife watches the baby from work while I work at home. When I travel--anywhere in the world--I can log in and see and talk to baby. It works great, and the sound and light fixtures help with sleeping in the crib.

I wanted to love this product. It makes so much sense...

First, the good:

1. It's well thought out. The device is slick, with simple buttons and the interface is simple and easy to use.

2. The sensors are very good. The video and audio quality is excellent.

3. Connecting to the device from the office or even another country works without issue. Great for me and relatives abroad (when Skype would be intrusive or too much effort).

Now, the bad:

1. Automatic switch to infrared is rubbish. The camera automatically switches to infrared (because it thinks its dark) when it shouldn't and there is no ability to manually manage this switch. Problem being, when it's dim or the device is close to a white wall, the camera endlessly switches between normal and infrared mode (and 10 seconds out of every 20 seconds, nothing is visible). Super annoying. The monitor also does this when the camera is at a less than 90 degree angle (because it picks up its own white base) - I verified this with customer support and its a known issue, for which no fix is planned!

2. Automatic infrared adjustment is rubbish. The camera tries to find the right infrared balance/contrast, but sometimes it uses the wrong object as its focus (eg the side of our crib and not our baby). Again, super annoying that your not able to manually adjust this to see your baby clearly.

3. Battery is rubbish. Literally, lasts for 10 minutes. Don't know why they other providing one, pretending the device can be used on this basis.

Now, the mediocre: connection stability.

It manages a relatively stable connection. There are a few disconnects (and some refusals to connect), but it generally holds its connection or can be reconnected with minimal effort. That said, this can be very frustrating (esp for partners that may not be IT savvy) and is something that should not happen with this price tag. Also, it was totally dud one evening, but I understand that this was due to the Withings servers being down. Again, this should not happen.

One upshot about having had these connection issues is that I found out that if the wifi doesn't work, you can connect to it using Bluetooth. This is an excellent backup and works really nicely!

All in all, I would by this product again, because I think it's best baby monitor on the market right now. I also want to throw it out the window some evenings....

If Withings could fix the connection issues, improve the battery, and allow the user to control the infrared switching and adjustment, this would be awesome! At this price, this should have been sorted before it was sold by Apple.

This is a truly brilliant product. We have had 2 BT baby monitors in the past but for our 3rd we thought we would embrace all that is Apple. Our daughter is now 10 weeks old and our monitor has been on 24/7 since her birth. We did have some issues with WiFi dropping out but its an old house with thick walls and the iPhone WiFi receptions is patchy in the nursery as well. The problem was easily fixed with a Powerline Ethernet. I am so impressed we can look in on our daughter from the pub when we are lucky enough to get a baby sitter and the image quality far exceeds any other video monitor we have seen. My only gripe is that it would have been nice to have greater control over the sensitivity of the alerts but all in all I could not recommend this more highly. Expensive but unmatched and in our minds well worth it.

We LOVE our Withings baby monitor. It has traveled with us to three different houses on a family trip and worked each time, both on Wifi and Bluetooth. We were having some issues with the iPhone 5 but our iPads never stopped working. The iPhone 5 issues may have been solved server-side as two days ago they seemed to go away. It does occasionally disconnect but always reconnects. People having disconnection issues should make sure the Wifi signal is strong enough in the monitored area or run an ethernet cable. We had problems when I moved the base station and I solved them by doing some optimization of the network.

This is a great product. Granted it's not the cheapest baby monitor but you'll struggle to find a cheaper one that does as much. On top of that it's beautifully designed including the monitor, app, included accessories and even the packaging.

It does everything it claims to do and does them very well.

Have to even out the reviews here: my experience of this product is first class, however I would say it was poor prior to the recent software update, and prior to this I would have to agree with the previous review, but the update has transformed this monitor into the product it promised to be.

We have a large, long, stone-built house but even at the opposite end of the house the monitor works very well on the wifi network. The visual view and night vision provide its USP, and the clip on magnetic stand make fixing to the side of the cot easy. Can thoroughly recommend.

I got this monitor back in August and used it on my iPhone 4, my husbands iPhone 3GS, and my iPad 2, during which time, all upgraded to iOS6 and continued to work well. I enjoyed the monitor a lot- especially the two way talking feature, the light (I used a green & red light to show my toddler when it was time to sleep and when it was time to get out of bed), and being able to remote monitor. These three features made the monitor unique.

My main reason for writing this review tho, is to warn iPhone 5 owners NOT to purchase this monitor. The minor connectivity issues mentioned in other reviews is extreme when used on the iPhone 5. Essentially, it loses connectivity every couple minutes, making it totally useless any time of the day. I have been in email contact back and forth for a month with Withings about the issue. They gave me several possible fixes, none of which worked. They finally admitted "There is definitly a problem with iPhone 5, sorry for the inconvenience." and claim they are working to fix the issue. Note: my iPad 2 still monitors wonderfully and my husbands iPhone 5 also doesn't work. It is a problem with iPhone 5.

I felt compelled to write a review after reading several reviews about this and other products and really wanting this product to be all that it says it is! I was nervous to purchase it for our newborn baby - reading some of the negative reviews about the product. So, I'm here to tell you - some of it is correct - AND - the pros of this product outweigh the cons!
Let me explain:

1. Yes, there is a slight delay when the baby cries or makes noise to when I hear it on my iphone or ipad. It's literally a second or two and it's not bad. Luckily, I can hear the baby cry in her bed nearly anywhere in my house (I have a very open two-story floorplan - almost 4000 square feet) - but it's nice to see her cry on any mac device I'm with. The delay is almost unnoticeable after awhile and doesn't bother us.

2. The app sometimes disconnects. Yes, this happens. It's happened a couple times - and with one click it reconnects. After having it a week it's happened twice - and I more blame this on the network than I do the device. They are constantly updating the app, too, so this will hopefully improve.

PROS:
1. There are so many amazing things about this product. I can watch baby girl while doing dishes, while shopping at the mall, and while working out at the gym. Anywhere, any time, I can see her crying. My husband (who might be watching her while I'm away), can call me and ask me what she needs based on her cry and wiggle in the crib (that I can watch in an instant from afar). That is just purely amazing - much more- while I'm traveling for work - I can pop in and see my baby.

2. This is one of the biggest (at least for me as a mom in the middle of the night who can lose sleep over this one...) - the monitor is so precise it picks up her breath. Yes, I can sleep in my bed listening to my 5 week old's breath. Knowing she is breathing among the blankets and binks - gives me great peace of mind AND makes the $300 I spent on this monitor a drop in the bucket -- right?!

3. There are several alerts you can program on your devices to go off - one in particular is for motion. I just love this. I set it up so there has to be a lot of motion for the alert to show up on my phone or iPad - i.e. a person walking in the room. AGAIN, I just love this for the peace of mind when my husband is traveling and I start freaking myself out that someone might break in and take my baby (LOL). With it, I will be alerted before anyone's hands can touch the baby. haha! In all seriousness, this is so great when baby starts rolling over, or when/if my 3-year-old decides to go into her bedroom and touch, sit, climb into, or play with her baby sister at night or naps. Huge, right?!

4. We love that there are all sorts of info given on the screen including temp, humidity, sound, etc. With the several features this monitor has, these are some of those things you may take for granted until you can actually use them. Temp is something I'm always looking at - especially for a newborn, and has helped me adjust what she's wearing, what blankets to add/subtract, and/or why she was crying.

Hope this helps. I would 100% recommend this product! I gave it 4 stars because of the first two cons. But they are DEFINITELY NOT deal breakers. This product is supreme over the others (which we've used for our first born). Oh! It clips onto the crib beautifully too - so easy to set up as well! My husband did it in five minutes.

Enjoy!